


We Are One

by Peachfuzz221



Category: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 16:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19479922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachfuzz221/pseuds/Peachfuzz221
Summary: You have been alone on Skull Island since as long as you can remember, a wild woman who has beat the impossible and survived the most dangerous place on planet earth from a child. You have only hazy memories of your past and confusing dreams that hint to a long lost family and a world beyond the island. It all starts coming together once intruders storm your home on mechanical birds, ancient beasts reawaken from the bowels of the earth, and you meet Kong, king of the island.





	We Are One

You do not remember much, if anything, about your past, but those lost memories played vividly in your dreams every night. Two vaguely familiar faces, one warmly feminine and the other comfortably masculine, held and played with you tenderly as their background seemed to change throughout the fantasy. You were but a babe in the arms of strangers, jungles and deserts and skies full of shifting stars swapping in a kaleidoscope of wonder before your very eyes. Every biome presented something new in a single day; in a single dream.

When you awoke from these colorful visions, you expected to feel a pleasant curiosity. A strange diversity of plant life and members of the animal kingdom fascinated you, like the ones roaming the island. Instead you were racked with confusion and an unexplainable wave of sadness that lingered in your heart every morning. Something was missing and your dreams were attempting to tell you exactly what that was.

Shuffling along the border of the dense jungle, you hid between the thick foliage that camouflaged your mud-stained skin and stared at the pike infested wall separating the village beyond from outsiders. From beasts. Rarely did an Ooman, a term you faintly recall to describe the creatures that looked like you, step out from the safety of the barrier. Their skin was darker than yours, only slightly, and covered in vibrant markings from head-to-toe. They covered their nudity in red material around the waist, chest, and head while you only had a tattered sheet hanging limply from your hips. However, the most interesting feature about them were their weapons. Compared to your crudely made dagger stuffed in the knots of your clothing, their spears were expertly crafted and wielded with effective skill. Especially the arrow heads sharpened to a fine point. Yours was messy and jagged and covered in dried blood, but it got the job done.

You liked watching Oomans when they decided to hunt, sometimes in packs, sometimes alone. Over the years they had taught you special tricks and advantages on how to survive in the cruel ecosystem of Skull Island. You had an inkling that they were aware of your presence, like the sudden wandering of their eyes in the direction of your hiding spot or the offering of scraps from their kills left after they traveled back to their sanctuary, but you never confronted them and vice versa.

Today, it seemed that the tribe had decided to stay inside. With a disappointed snort, you turned heel and darted into the forest. Deep, hard calluses from a decade of traveling on bare feet enveloped the bases, making walking on littered jungle floor less painful. Like a cat on pads. Your hands also had calluses from frequent use. Survival on Skull Island was extremely challenging and required every sense and instrument your body provided. In truth, you should not even be alive.

You had been living on this god-forsaken place since you were small, where the evocation of your childhood grew hazy. The concept of time was lost to you, aside from night and day, but you recall the period long before your first bleed. It was a lot of crying and fear at first, longing to be found by the someones or somethings that haunted your dreams. You were so small and innocent, completely ignorant on how to care for yourself. Every animal was larger than life and out to eat you. You hid in tight, claustrophobic spaces just to feel safe and waited for days at a time before leaving to find something to eat and drink. You drank from running streams and foraged plants you thought were edible, which were little. Most of the time you were ill, throwing up and dry-heaving from your empty stomach, and dirtied the bottoms you wore from malnutrition and diarrhea. It was pure hell for you as a young girl and sometimes you had nightmares about that part of your life, near death so often. But you learned to grow up quickly, despite the complications.

Sticking your fingers in a gaping crevice, you used the metatarsals of your feet to propel yourself forward as you climbed a rocky cliff face. At the top, reaching just above the canopy, resided a small cave. From the lingering smell of rotting meat and dried dung, you guessed it used to home a tiger before you moved in. For the first few nights you stayed awake with your dagger in your hand, in case the predator decided to come back. But it never did. You cleaned out the dung and bones and used the space to store fruit and small mammals you killed, using their skin and fur as bedding as nights sometimes became dreadfully cold.

Leaping from outcropping to outcropping, similar to oddly placed stairs, you stopped at the summit and fell to your butt on the cool surface. You were home. Sliding to your back, chest rising and falling in tandem with the bird-like chirps of the tree ants, you gazed at the clear sky, not a cloud in sight. The sun had just begun to set, dropping towards the earth and bringing a beautifully placed sunset of pinks, oranges and yellows with it. This was your favorite part of the day. "Suh-set", you hummed, trying to pronounce the word correctly. Your English was severely lacking, but you knew enough to hold a short, comprehensible conversation. As you grew older, the mechanics of the language seemed to leave you, so you took it upon yourself to practice what you knew everyday so you would not forget. So you would not lose anymore than you already have.

Lifting a hand, you reached up open-palmed and fingers spread to catch the fiery star. "Sun", you breathed, squeezing air and admiring the glow outlining your digits.

A booming roar that shook the island resounded in the distance.

Kong.

Everybody, creature and Ooman alike, knew of the King. You have heard his name passed through the lips of the usually silent villagers many times. He ruled Skull Island generously, protecting its inhabitants and smiting any threat to the land's harmony. A monster. A savior. A leader. He embodied so much more. The villagers worshipped him as a God, a primitive beast that teetered on the edge of life and death. He was judge and jury and a powerful force to be reckoned with.

You have seen him quite a few times from a safe distance surveying his home. They were merely glimpses of a swinging limb, the side of his face, or the length of his massive back as he feasted on a mire squid. Only once did you catch him in all his primal glory.

____________________________________________________________________________

You had taken shelter in the dusty skull of a three-horned reptilian that day, holding your breath so as not to alert the stalking skullcrawler. You had accidentally trespassed on their land, a fatal mistake for most, after chasing a maimed fawn across the invisible line between territories. The skeletons are what tipped you off, the ribs jutting out of the ground like spikes and broken bone fragments strewn about the dirt in small mounds. Realizing your blunder, you let the deer escape and quickly made for the nearby paper forest, hoping you were not spotted. That is when you heard a sharp hiss.

Your heart jumped to your throat. Reaching for your dagger and whipping it out with a white-knuckled grip, you raced at maximum speed with eyes forward towards the forest. It was not the safest place, but you stood a better chance there than out in the open. The barren trees seemed so far away and by now you could feel the vibrations of heavy footfalls pursuing you. The skullcrawler let out an ear-piercing cry.

You had never had the displeasure of facing the apex predator and had prayed you never would. They brought down their wrath vehemently and determinedly on any scrap of prey they set their ravenous sights upon and you had made it a priority to know their domain and preferred areas of hunting to stay clear of their warpath. You let your guard down and it may just cost you your life.

Once it was practically on top of you, the crawler swatted its tail, pummeling into your stomach with sheer force and sending you flying into the air. The wind was knocked out of you before you landed on your back with a violent thud, sending a seething lance of pain up your spine. A heavy groan escaped your lips. You willed yourself to get up, but the pain was so great you fell back with a cry, hand rushing to your ribcage.

The crawler shrieked again, charging at you with incredible speed. Luckily it had launched you near a gargantuan decapitated skull and forcing your wobbly legs to carry you, you limped achingly towards it, grunting all the way. That is how you ended up in a fetal position inside the skull of an extinct dinosaur, desperately clutching your dagger and tears streaming down your cheeks from the agony of your internal wounds.

The crawler clamored outside the jaw, sniffing the earth furiously and prodding at the skull with its claws. You had no idea if it knew you were inside and was concocting a plan on how to get to you or if it genuinely lost you and was commencing a heated search for its escaped meal. Breathing quietly through your nose, you wondered if the layer of hard mud caked on your skin was enough to mask your scent. It worked for tracking potential prey and hiding from smaller predators, but you slowly became aware of the pungent sweat drenching your body and wetting the mud. No, no, no, you chanted the simple, panicked mantra as the skullcrawler pawed at the loose dirt beneath the skull.

One of its fingers would cram itself in the eye sockets or between the flat molars every now and then, but you were balled up in the back of the throat out of reach and intently watching the motions. You dared not make a sound.

Then it stopped.

It became quiet. Too quiet. Waiting a few gut-wrenching moments, you settled both hands on either side of the skull and steadily approached an opening. Your muscles burned with every movement, but you ignored the hurt and focused on the skullcrawler. Peering through the right socket, there was no sign of the devil except for a pattern of large four-toed footprints leading away from your hideout.

It had disappeared. You exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned back against the wall. Your elation was premature.

A sudden impact rammed into the skull, sending your already jarred body barrelling as the entire decapitated skeleton flipped out of place. The mandible snapped off and the cranium cracked as the crawlers claw slammed down onto the surface, halting its departure. A blood-curdling scream erupted from your throat as the other reached inside the mouth, its bony fingers curling tightly around your body and jerking you forth. Releasing its hold on the skeletal remains, the monster opened its maw full of serrated teeth and gave a deafening, triumphant roar, forcing you to the ground and trapping you between its slender digits.

Beaten like a ragdoll, you barely mustered the strength to raise your weapon and jam the dagger into the skullcrawler's hand, piercing it as many times as you could. There was no way you were gonna come out of this alive, so might as well go down fighting. With that resolve, you kept stabbing, dark torrents of blood dripping down your arms. The crawler reared back, the piercing blade having no effect, and prepared to finish what it started. You gave a last scream as it lunged for your head.

You shut your eyes at the last minute, losing all your courage as you waited for an agonizing death. But it never came. The suffocating weight of the crawler was flung off of you as an enormous figure blocked the sun, casting a shadow over the landscape. Lungs filling with great gulps of air, your eyes flung open to behold Skull Island's defender himself.

He had wrapped his hands around his foe's tail and swung the creature into a nearby mountain, ropes of muscle tensed for a fight and eyes burning with merciless rage. An explosion of falling rock and debris shook the earth as the skullcrawler collided into the bruised peak, a great bellow bursting from its jaws. Kong bared his canines in a roar as the devil shook the attack off, not even sparing you a glance.

He did not need to. You were doing enough gaping for the both of you, eyes wide and mouth hanging in an awestruck O. The King did not travel to these parts of the island. Unless a swarm of crawlers invaded his empire, he let them bring death to the barren steam vents across his homeland, fearing the wrath of the Mother should she be awoken from her slumber. He must of heard your screams.

The two brutes continued their shouting contest and, anticipating a battle, you rose to your shaky feet with every intention to make it to the paper forest. This was your last chance to get out of harm's way. Limping, you pushed forward, fighting the impulse to curl up in the dirt and squirm until you passed out from the torment of your blackening backside and crushed ribs. One foot in front of the other.

A battle cry deafened you as the devil launched its attack. A flock of alert Leafwings took to the sky as the behemoths came together in a showdown of epic proportions, screeching their discontented tempers and weaving their way passed the graveyard with talons unfolded.

One pulled at your hair, cackling malevolently. Unsheathing your dagger, you swat at it and managed to knick its leg before it flew off. More attempted the same, but you trudged onward, unfazed, swinging your blade furiously.

Jus few more.

Kong delivered a jaw-breaking punch, sending the opposing force crashing into the ground. His fist encased the crawler's neck in a chokehold, compelling the reptant to stay in place as he raised the other high above his head. Glancing behind you, you watched the King swing his fist down like a whistling missile and bash the skullcrawler's skull with a sickening clap. And just like that, it was over. The ape thrashed his foe's cranium one more time to make sure it was dead, then backed off with a final snort. He had won, but it was merely a single battle in a never ending war against the subterranean death bringers.

Heaving in relief as well as exhaustion, your feet fumbled over each other and you fell face first into the dirt just as the gargantuan ape turned curiously face the target of the crawler's insatiable appetite. Had you any shame, and were not on the verge of passing out, you would have effortlessly recovered and made a getaway instead of playing the fool that nearly got eaten by a devil. After over a decade of living on this island. Talk about humiliating.

You could see it on his face too, flipping to your side to confront that serious, mildly inquisitive scowl of his. Just like a parent would scold their child in that knowing i-know-what-you-did spell of silence. You briefly entertained the idea that he could be a threat as well, but your fatigue won over and you let your battered body rest in the sunlight. He snorted a vague warning, reminding you that danger was still present, then left you to your repose. His work was done.

The journey back to your humble abode was a long one, fraught with plenty of breaks. You bathed yourself in a nearby stream to clean off the inky blood on your arm and spent days in your cave sleeping while you healed from the trauma covering your back in black and blue bruising.

____________________________________________________________________________

Ever since then, you never stopped thinking about Kong. He could have easily ended you with just the weight of his big toe. He can move mountains, no big deal, influence the equilibrium of the environment with just his size to back him up, be the god the villagers hailed him to be. But what he is is much simpler; a lonely creature with thoughts, feelings, and a sense of justice.

Maybe you were overthinking it, but as you looked up at the sky now radiant with blinking stars you wanted nothing more than to keep feeling this kinship. Not everything on this island was out for your blood. At least one thought you worthy enough of saving.


End file.
